I bought these and started DAO again a couple days ago. I had them on console before, but it was cheap enough to add to my Steam account. I loaded up a ton of mods this time. So far I’m having fun, but it crashes a lot, so I’m quick saving constantly. I’m not sure if the crashing is the game, my laptop, or the mods. I’m assuming its the mods and so far don’t care enough to figure out which one(s). The good news is, I can go from desktop to loaded game in about 30 seconds, which is a nice change from modern games that take forever to load.

For those commenting on EA, if you buy on Steam you’ll get a launcher, but you don’t need the EA app to play (at least for DAO, I haven’t gotten to the others yet). However, if you just don’t want to give your $7 to EA (after Steam’s cut), that’s totally understandable.

One of my prior roles was moved from a proper office to an open office and one of the “selling” points was “you can work from anywhere in our cool new building!”. So, I spent most of my day anywhere but my desk. I got my work done and half my time was spent in meetings either way, but if I didn’t have somewhere to be, I’d be in the quietest spot I could find in the building (cafeteria mid-morning/afternoon, conference area when there were no meetings, outside, the lobby, etc.). I was regularly commended for adopting the new culture.

Hey, I’ve been there! Related to Christmas, every year Nevada City has a Victorian Christmas celebration where they all dress fancy and neighboring Grass Valley has Cornish Christmas, that seems to celebrate the working class. Total speculation on my part, I’m guessing in the 1800s all the mine owners lived in Nevada City and all the miners lived in Grass Valley.

Its not always sinister, sometimes its just the petty bureaucracy of HR trying to standardize things to benefit themselves. I once got switched from salary to hourly because HR was trying to align job titles across departments.

My title at the time was Sr. Analyst and they were switching to a numerical title system. My boss said to write up a justification for why I should be slotted as an Analyst 3, which would stay salary, otherwise I would be slotted as an hourly Analyst 2. I asked if there was any benefit to the higher title and was told no, so I declined and was switched to hourly. For me it was fantastic because I regularly worked over 40 hours and traveled frequently, so I started getting lots of overtime pay.

I pretty much only buy cables (of any kind) from Monoprice.

I agree with this recommendation. After taxes, paying off the loan is probably slightly more profitable and improves your monthly cash flow.

Its only temporary, those employees will be eliminated later under more lax labor laws.

My plan is to move to the EU and I assume I will want to get a local account to handle local transactions. I would not necessarily need a local brokerage account if I can keep my investments in the US, I would just need to work out the reporting requirements for local taxes.

A lot of the details will depend on my work situation at the time (local employment, US remote, or retired). I’ve started a list of things I will need to figure out, but am mostly just adding to the list right now since any potential move is still several yeats away (at best).

Thanks for posting this question. I can’t provide any helpful answers, but I plan to move out of the US in the future and was not aware of this issue. I will be adding this to my long-term planning list.

I also go back to Skyrim constantly; it is probably my most played game. I have a hard time making a definite suggestion because I sit here many nights and wonder which game I want to play and frequently find that I don’t want to play any of them (so I scroll Lemmy instead). That said, below are a few that might be possibilities and I’m looking forward to reading everyone else’s suggestions so I can find my next game too!

You could check out the Dungeon Siege or Torchlight series. They’re both Diablo-style gameplay, but in a super generic RPG setting. They’re both older, cheaper, and okay game series.

The Overlord series is fun, its kind of a reverse RPG where you are the bad guy terrorizing the locals with your minions. The gameplay mainly revolves around directing your minions more than direct combat. It is a bit simplistic, but I really enjoyed it.

I’m not a fan of the Witcher series, but lots of people love it and it seems to check most of the boxes you’re looking for.

I agree with the Oblivion suggestion. I’m always conflicted on this one because I think it is a better game than Skyrim in terms of quests and interactions, but the gameplay is a bit dated and there were some questionable design decisions that resulted in some major overhaul mods being built to completely redesign the leveling system. I would love to have Oblivion, but with Skyrim graphics and mechanics (mostly).

Kingdoms of Amalur definitely seems like it hits everything on your list. I struggled to stay interested in it long enough to finish it (I think I finished it), but I’m not sure why since it has all the elements I enjoy from other games.

Similar to KoA, Dragon’s Dogma seems to have all the typical things I like in a game, but I’ve played it twice and not made it out of the starting region either time. I’m not sure what it is that causes me to lose interest so fast. There’s nothing I can point to and say I dislike.

Greedfall is super weird (to me) and not quite a fantasy RPG, more like medieval fantasy RPG. It is generally an open world game, but not as open as Skyrim (fewer side-quests, semi-linear main quest line). I thought it was an okay game, the main thing that frustrated me is that there were some areas of the game where you could make decisions with major story impacts and other areas where you were not given any choice in the narrative. As a result, I sometimes felt like my character was taking actions that were not in alignment with the narrative I had created for him. I appreciated that the game seemed unique and not just copying something else that was successful and I think I played it on GamePass at the time, so it was kind of like playing it for free. :)

If you have any debt (credit cards, auto, student loans), I would pay that off before adding more than the 12% to retirement.

If you are debt free and have some short-term savings, I would contribute to a Roth IRA before adding to the 401k. At a mid 5 figure income level, the tax savings from the 401k aren’t that impressive. Meanwhile, the IRA gives you some flexibility to draw funds for a first time home purchase, major medical expense, or potentially the option to withdraw prior contributions without penalty. You then have the flexibility to invest according to your knowledge and risk tolerance.

I would probably only choose the 401k if the tax reduction was meaningful and I earned too much for a traditional IRA (those 2 things typically coincide). Another possibility is if your company has a good ESPP program, ideally one that allows you to sell shares immediately after they are purchased (no minimum holding period). If there is a holding period (my employer requires 1 year), you have to think very hard about how much risk you are taking on during that time.

I also use a double edge safety razor, but have an electric razor also for a quick morning shave. Other things I do:

• I cut my hair with clippers I bought 15+ years ago for the price of 1-2 haircuts. This probably only works for people with simple, short hair, but has saved me thousands of dollars compared to getting a monthly haircut at $20+

• We put a basket with cloth napkins next to the dining table and a basket with washcloths on the kitchen counter and have drastically reduced the quantity of paper towels that we use

sigh…I’ll have to settle for riding piggy back on vasco.

I would absolutely spend my credits on a robot dog mount for ground transport!

just to be clear…my in game credits, not any kind of real money.

I’m not a fan of star wars, but I liked kotor 1 & 2. I’d probably play a kotor 3, but not a remake. I have no interest in anything tied in with the movies, make a new story with new characters, I don’t care about luke or darth vader.

Right now I’m putting most of my extra cash in TFLO, which is a short term treasury bill fund. It’s a very safe fund for preserving capital with a current payout around 5%. I do also have some money in stocks, but right now I’m just taking advantage of the safe returns while deciding how I feel about the broader economy.

I didn’t know we had thrusters…

Musicolet is my preferred music player OurGroceries is what I use to keep shared lists with my family (mainly grocery list, but also things like a travel check list and favorite meals for when we can think of what to have for dinner).

One other thing to consider is if you get insurance through your employer, you lose it as soon as you leave. Imagine if one of you has a long-term illness that puts you out of work before dying. All of the premiums paid by that spouse would be lost with no payout.

For myself, I have just enough supplemental insurance through my employer to cover funeral expenses for my wife (who is currently in school) and my kids, no supplemental insurance for myself. I should add a term life plan for me outside work, but have not done so yet.

Also, I think you can stack different durations to account for increased savings over time. For example, you might get a 10 year and a 20 year term life plan for 500K each. If you died in the first 10 years, your family would get 1M total. Hopefully in 10 years your savings has increased enough to live with a smaller insurance payout, but you could always add more coverage then, if needed.

I agree with the MMF approach, I’ve moved almost everything out of my HYS account and am using my brokerage account for savings now.